Mark Twain & Adventures of Huckleberry

FinnTwain was “the father of American literature”

—William Falkner

“All American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.”

—Ernest Hemingway

American humorist, satirist, writer, & lecturer

“It would be difficult to imagine a contemporary individual who is at once the best known author in the United States, the most popular stand-up comedian and monologuist, and simultaneously the friend of presidents, artists, leading industrialists, and even European royalty. Yet in the last quarter of the 19th Century, that is who Mark Twain was.” (wikipedia)

b. Nov. 30, 1835d. April 21, 1910

“I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don't go out with Halley's Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: ‘Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.’” —Twain

[See http://faculty.citadel.edu/leonard/budd.htm for rebuttal.]

Twain: Key Homes (composite photo)

Composite photo of Clemens’s birthplace at Florida, MO (1835);Stormfield, his home in Redding, CT (where he died in 1910); and

Halley’s comet (1985). Picture by Dave Thomson (http://www.twainquotes.com/Halley's_Comet.html)

Twain: Early Years & Professions

Born in Florida, MO; moved to Hannibal at 4 yrs. (inspiration for St. Petersburg)

Missouri was a slave state

Father died when Clemens was 11 yrs. old

Worked as a steamboat pilot, miner, printer, travel writer, lecturer, & writer

Twain: Photographs

Twain: Personal LifeClemens said he fell in love with his

wife, Olivia, upon seeing her picture. Their marriage lasted 34 years until Olivia's death. He outlived his wife, a son, and two of his daughters. A deep depression began in 1896 when he received word on a lecture tour in England that his favorite daughter, Susy, had died. His wife’s death in 1904 and the loss of a second daughter on December 24, 1909 deepened his gloom. He died in April 1910.

Twain: Hardship & Style In addition to his

personal tragedies, Clemens also experienced business and financial hardships & failures (mostly due to investments).

His personal problems led to a turn in his tone: from humorous to more biting and critical of humankind.

Twain’s Funeral

Twain: The Quote Meister “A lie can travel halfway

around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.”

“Diligence is a good thing, but taking things easy is much more—restful.”

“Before I had chance in another war, the desire to kill people to whom I had not been introduced had passed away.”

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Huck Finn, published in 1884, included several characters from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876)

Huck Finn was the first book published by Clemens’s publishing company. He also contacted Ulysses S. Grant and published his memoirs. (http://www.marktwainhouse.org/

theman/bio.shtml)

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Huck Finn developed in a period in Clemens’s life when his humor is balanced by his critical eye, his optimism by his pessimism.

It’s one of the first “great American novels” (wikipedia).

“The drifting journey of Huck and his friend Jim, a runaway slave, down the Mississippi River on their raft may be one of the most enduring images of escape and freedom in all of American literature” (wikipedia).

(http://www.postermandan.com/images/huckleberryfinnPOL.jpg)

Huck Finn

(http://www.moviegoods.com/movie_product.asp?master_movie_id=616)

Huck Finn, quotes from wikipedia

“The book is noted for its innocent young protagonist, its colorful description of people and places along the Mississippi River, and its sober and often scathing look at entrenched attitudes, particularly racism, of the time.”

“It was also one of the first major American novels ever written using Local Color Realism or the vernacular, or common speech [. . .]”

“The American Library Association ranked Huckleberry Finn the fifth most frequently challenged (in the sense of attempting to ban) book in the United States during the 1990s.”

Original Illustrations, by E. W. Kemble(http://etext.virginia.edu/twain/twaillus1.html)

More Illustrations

“This batch of pictures is most rattling good. They please me exceedingly.” —Twain

Reviews: Boston Evening Traveler, 1885It is little wonder that Mr. Samuel Clemens, otherwise Mark

Twain, resorted to real or mock lawsuits, as may be, to restrain some real or imaginary selling of "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" as a means of advertising that extraordinarily senseless publication. Before the work is disposed of, Mr. Mark Twain will probably have to resort to law to compel some to sell it by any sort of bribery or corruption. It is doubtful if the edition could be disposed of to people of average intellect at anything short of the point of the bayonet. This publication rejoices in two frontispieces, of which the one is supposed to be a faithful portrait of Huckleberry Finn, and the other an engraving of the classic features of Mr. Mark Twain as seen in the bust made by Karl Gerhardt. The taste of this gratuitous presentation is as bad as is the book itself, which is an extreme statement. Mr. Clemens has contributed some humorous literature that is excellent and will hold its place, but his Huckleberry Finn appears to be singularly flat, stale and unprofitable.

http://etext.virginia.edu/railton/huckfinn/bosttrav.html

Reviews: The Hartford Courant, 1885In his latest story, Huckleberry Finn (Tom Sawyer's Comrade),

by Mark Twain, Mr. Clemens has made a very distinct literary advance over Tom Sawyer, as an interpreter of human nature and a contributor to our stock of original pictures of American life. Still adhering to his plan of narrating the adventures of boys, with a primeval and Robin Hood freshness, he has broadened his canvas and given us a picture of a people, of a geographical region, of a life that is new in the world. The scene of his romance is the Mississippi river. Mr. Clemens has written of this river before specifically, but he has not before presented it to the imagination so distinctly nor so powerfully. Huck Finn's voyage down the Mississippi with the run away nigger Jim, and with occasionally other companions, is an adventure fascinating in itself as any of the classic outlaw stories, but in order that the reader may know what the author has done for him, let him notice the impression left on his mind of this lawless, mysterious, wonderful Mississippi, when he has closed the book. [ . . . .]

The Hartford Courant (continued)The beauty of this is that it is apparently done without effort.

Huck floating down the river happens to see these things and to encounter the people and the characters that made the river famous forty years ago—that is all. They do not have the air of being invented, but of being found. And the dialects of the people, white and black—what a study are they; and yet nobody talks for the sake of exhibiting a dialect. It is not necessary to believe the surprising adventures that Huck engages in, but no one will have a moment's doubt of the reality of the country and the people he meets. [. . . .]These contradictions, however, do not interfere with the fun of the story, which has all the comicality, all the odd way of looking at life, all the whimsical turns of thought and expression that have given the author his wide fame and made him sui generis. The story is so interesting so full of life and dramatic force, that the reader will be carried along irresistibly, and the time he loses in laughing he will make up in diligence to hurry along and find out how things come out.

(http://etext.virginia.edu/railton/huckfinn/harcour2.html)

Various Interpretations of Jim

“My coons caught the public fancy." —E.W. Kemble

Conclusion“Like any good journalist, Sam Clemens/Mark Twain spent his

life observing and reporting on his surroundings. In his writings he provided images of the romantic, the real, the strengths and weaknesses of a rapidly changing world. By examining his life and his works, we can read into the past—piecing together various events of the era and the responses to them. We can delve into the American mindset of the late nineteenth century and make our own observations of history, discover new connections, create new inferences and gain better insights into the time period and the people who lived in it. As Sam [Clemens] once wrote, ‘Supposing is good, but finding out is better.’”

(http://www.marktwainhouse.org/theman/bio.shtml)

Works Cited/ConsultedIf not attributed, the photos/illustrations

came from one of the following cites:

http://www.twainquotes.com/H.htmlhttp://www.marktwainhouse.org/theman/bio.shtmlhttp://etext.virginia.edu/railton/huckfinn/

jiminpix.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_twain